By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 15

Chapter 4 Episode 15: Harvest

“This is one big find,” I said with a chuckle.

By creating antibodies against poison, my bloody slimes’ Poison Resistance level had increased. Wondering what that meant for their Disease Resistance level, I looked into it and found that they had antibodies against pathogens as well, more than they did for poisons. It looked possible to use bloody slime serums to cure both poisons and diseases.

I took out my watch and realized that it was just two minutes before when we were supposed to gather in the morning. I quickly put some bug repellent on, then rushed out of my Dimension Home and toward the carriages. I swore that once I returned home, I’d ask Dinome to develop an alarm clock.

I kept running until I saw the students. Many of them had already gathered. I went around the group of students and headed to the teachers past them.

“Yo, Ryoma. Perfect timing.”

“I’m sorry, Roche. My slimes distracted me.”

“Yeah? How’d things go?”

“Everything worked out, thankfully.”

“Really?! That’s great to hear.”

“Sorry about all the commotion, everyone!”

Thankfully the meeting place was close to the campsite, so I narrowly managed to avoid being late. It seemed that everyone there had heard about what happened last night. Everyone was listening, so I used the opportunity to report how the incident concluded.

“Time to start the morning assembly, then. Attention, everyone! How was your first night in Poison Bug Plains?”

“I’m itchy!”

“I couldn’t get any sleep.”

Most of the students suffered from bug bites. The main purpose of the morning assembly was to perform a roll-call and confirm everyone’s safety, so we didn’t spend too much time on it.

“For those of you who got bitten, you probably weren’t taking enough preventative measures. After you’ve been treated to the best of our abilities, check on your tools and make sure you’re using them right! We’ll be camping here two more times. If you don’t get it together, you’re gonna have a bad time! Again, you’re free to ask the teachers any questions! That is all. Dismissed!”

The students began to walk to the tents or the teachers, whereas Roche came toward me. “Ryoma, I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “A few of the teachers have gotten questions about fighting styles and weapons. This isn’t part of the schedule, but we were thinking about holding mock battles between the teachers to help explain things to the students. Would you mind joining in and fighting with a bow?”

“That’s fine with me, but does it have to be a bow?”

“I won’t say you have to. Everyone’s got their own fighting styles. But ideally, we can show off a wide variety of weapons and styles. Most of the teachers here primarily use close combat, so it’d be great if you could use a ranged weapon. I hear you shot a bird out of the sky during night watch duty.”

I guess he heard that from one of the other people on guard duty. I needed blood for my bloody slimes, so I shot down a nocturnal bird I happened to see.

“If you’ve got skills like that, I think you could teach the students something. Can you do that for us?”

“I’d be happy to,” I said. It sounded like he wouldn’t mind if I said no, but I was here as a teacher. Helping the students to learn better was my duty. “For the mock battle, I’ll make arrows without arrowheads.”

“Yeah?! Then I’ll go tell the others. Talk to you later. Can’t keep the students waiting,” Roche said and began to walk off, but when I was about to go make arrows, I heard someone step in the grass behind me. I turned around to see who it was.

“Beck?”

“Yo.”

Beck was seldom seen without his allies, but he was standing there alone. He wasn’t talking to anyone, just looking at me. As Roche left, Beck came forward in his place like he needed something.

“I tried to be careful, but bugs got into my tent anyway. I just wanted to ask if you know any good ways to prevent that,” he said. I never saw him timid before, but today he was acting awkward. It reminded me of Tabuchi, my old subordinate.

“Bugs got in, huh? Even if you’ve got solid countermeasures in place, they’ll often come in at the same time people are entering. Check if they’re on your clothes or shoes before you go inside. Also, should I teach you how to make a simple bug repellent? All you have to do is crush up some medicinal herbs that you can find around here. If you smear that on the entrance to your tent, it should keep flying bugs away too.”

“Oh, I see. Can you do that?”

Thus, Beck and I went out to the plains.

“Is this a good spot? We didn’t walk that far.”

“As long as it’s in direct sunlight, the herbs will grow anywhere in the plains,” I explained. Honestly, we could probably have found them without even leaving the campsite. “Here, look at this. It’s balminist, a grass that bugs hate. If you crush it up and add water, you can make a simple but effective insect-repelling fluid. But the duration of its effects will depend on the thickness of the fluid and won’t last more than a day at the longest, so collecting and mashing the grass just before you use it will provide the best results. And it’ll hurt your skin, so don’t rub it on yourself. Anyway, let’s take a couple handfuls to use for tonight.”

“Got it.”

We stood back to back and silently began to gather up the grass. There was nobody around to see or hear us. The wind rustled the foliage, the sound of plants rubbing together loud and clear to my ears.

“Hey,” Beck quietly said as he finally worked up the determination to talk.

“What?”

“I heard that Gazelle’s party gave you some trouble. Uh, sorry about that.”

“Huh? Why are you apologizing for that?”

“Why? Because we’re from the same slums, you know. I’ve known those guys my whole life. We weren’t even on bad terms till we became adventurers.”

“Really?”

“Oh right, maybe I’ve only ever complained about them around you. Before we registered at the guild, we talked about teaming up. But then I heard that Wist and his friends were registering too, and I was worried about them, so I decided to work with them instead. That’s when we started doing stuff separate from each other, and next thing I knew, well, you know how it is now,” Beck said. It sounded like there had been discord between them for a long time now, but Beck still cared about them on some level. “And when they make fun of the rest of my team, I sure don’t let them get away with that! I hate that!”

“I see. Well, don’t worry. I’m not mad about it. I told them that when it happened, actually.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” Beck said. He wasn’t there, but presumably heard about the incident from people who were.

“Did you think I was going to give you a harsh punishment or something?”

“Well, I know you’ve got no mercy for your enemies. You beat up burglars who try to steal your slimes and stuff. People always say how going after your slimes could get ugly quick.”

“Sure, I’ve beaten up burglars, and Gazelle’s team mentioned that too. Do people really talk about that all the time?”

“Why would I lie about that?”

Maybe this was something I needed to have Carme check.

■ ■ ■

By the time we finished collecting grass to be made into insect repellent, Beck’s fears had disappeared. But he had split up with his allies to speak with me, and didn’t know where they were now. Rather than go look for them, he said he wanted to help me with something as thanks for forgiving Gazelle. So we went to collect one more material in the woods.

“So we’re going pretty far into the woods?”

“I explored the edges of the woods and the areas near the river when I was gathering food and water yesterday. If it’s anywhere, I think it’d have to be further in.”

“Gilkoda leaves, you said? Do those sell for a lot?”

“Not at all. They contain medicinal components, but also poisonous ones, so not even drug stores bother with them. They can be used as an insect repellent in clothes and books, though.”

They were considered a medicinal herb, but they weren’t typically seen. I had never actually seen them myself, but when I was checking my information about this region, I found a description of them.

“Gilkoda is most easily identified by its smelly fruit. Touching those fruits can give you a rash, so be careful.”

“If it’s smelly, then maybe Ruth or Rumille could find it fast.”

“Those dog beastkin siblings? Maybe they could find it, but they’d probably hate it.”

“It smells that bad?”

“I haven’t actually seen them before, but I know the special properties of the leaves. I know of herbs with the exact same properties right down to the symptoms of their poisons, so I wanted to check these leaves for myself.”

Gilkoda trees had smelly fruit. When I looked into further details about these trees, they sounded identical to ginkgos, trees commonly planted on roadsides in Japan with leaves that turn yellow in autumn. This world had monsters and other creatures that didn’t exist on Earth, but they did use wheat and potatoes in cooking, and when it came to medicinal herbs, they had something called mogwort that was a lot like mugwort. There were many such plants and animals that resembled ones from Earth, so I thought gilkoda trees may be the same for ginkgo trees.

The wind carried a stench to our nostrils. “Is this the smell?” Beck asked.

“It came from over there. Let’s go.”

We walked in that direction for a few minutes, when we came upon ginkgo trees, their bright yellow leaves shining in the sunlight.

“Wow, awesome. But dang, do they smell,” Beck said.

I cast Appraisal on a fallen leaf.

Gilkoda leaves: Contains both medicinal and poisonous components.

Medicinal Components: Flavonoids, ginkgolides.

Poisonous Components: Ginkgolic acids.

The components were listed in names that I understood. These were, without a doubt, ginkgo trees.

I opened up my Item Box to take out a towel and deodorizing fluid. “Beck, use these. Also, here’s a basket for the leaves, and some gloves you can use.”

They only planted male ginkgo trees by roads because they didn’t bear fruit, from what I heard, but no such attention was paid to these. They were as they would be in nature. Impressed by their beautiful yellow leaves, I did what I could about the smell and took preventative measures against rashes, then started to gather up leaves.

■ ■ ■

“Thanks for the help. I wouldn’t have gotten so many leaves without you.”

“No problem. Now I’ve got a nice story to tell the rest of my party when I get back,” Beck said. We finished collecting the leaves without a hitch, so now we could return to the campsite. “I’ll be going, then. Need to make some insect repellent before they get back. You just have to put it in water and crush it up, right?”

“Right. Just be careful not to get any on your skin, and find a good spot to smear with it.”

“Got it!”

Beck returned to his tent with an armful of balminist. Feeling that I should do the same, I went back to my base and activated my Dimension Home once I was inside. Before it was my turn for guard duty, I had to process what I had collected.

First, there were the ginkgo leaves. I had two full baskets of them, but they were still dirty. I put all the leaves in a big container and used alchemy to remove the filth. Only the leaves and the container remained inside the magic circle, while the filth was outside. I had my scavenger slimes clean up the garbage, then separated out the ginkgolic acids while I was at it. Now I had some safe ginkgo leaves.

Leaving those aside for now, next I had some mushrooms that I picked up on the way back. I wanted to use them to experiment with mushroom cultivation. I had no time for it last night due to the bloody slime incident, but I still had time today.

I opened my Item Box and took out some fallen wood that I found in the forest. I used alchemy to remove any filth and bugs from the wood and asked my scavenger slimes to get rid of it. Then I cast Polish Wheel to turn the wood into sawdust. The rapidly spinning wind and sand gradually broke the semi-dried wood down into tiny bits. I did a bit of a rough job, but this was my first experiment, so I thought it was fine. When the sawdust was done, I left it aside for the time being.

Next, I put the mushrooms in a container and used alchemy to split them apart as well, obtaining hyphae that I could cultivate in the sawdust. And as a further source of nutrients, I took fertilizer from the scavenger slimes that helped me clean up the filth. I mixed all of these together in a flat container about two meters by one meter in size and added as much water as seemed appropriate. I had no idea what would happen because I had no experience with mushroom cultivation. It would be nice if this worked as a proper mushroom bed, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up.

Lastly, I’d slept in my Dimension Home last night, but I intended to sleep in my base tonight. I had to get ready for that. I took about twenty sticky slimes with me as I left the Dimension Home, then ordered them to crawl up the walls and stick to the ceiling. By having them dangle some tentacles down from up there, they could act like flypaper catching any flying bugs that got in. I could sense the enthusiasm from the lightly swinging tentacles. They seemed very dependable.

Once I also set up a mosquito net and left out an incense burner, I had created a comfortable environment for myself. I kept improving my base until it was time for guard duty.